Tweet

Systems and Structure Pathways and Pitfalls

Guest post by: Jim Clemmer

Article Overview: Effective systems follow, serve, and support rather than control, direct, and dictate. The central structure and systems alignment question is "for whose convenience is your organization designed?" Is it to serve customers and those producing for or serving them?

Systems and Structure Pathways and Pitfalls

"Farming looks mighty easy when your plough is a pencil, and you're a thousand miles from the corn field." (his emphasis) - Dwight Eisenhower, thirty-fourth American president, speech in Peoria, Illinois Effective systems follow, serve, and support rather than control, direct, and dictate. The central structure and systems alignment question is "for whose convenience is your organization designed?" Is it to serve customers and those producing for or serving them? Or is it designed to make life easier for management and staff support groups? Look at planning, accounting, invoicing, telephone, information technology, and human resource systems. Just whom are they serving? Systems either enslave or enable. How do people in your organization feel systems are helping or hindering them?

Organization structure and systems are clear indications of management's true values (regardless of what might be printed on pretty parchment paper). How far do they really trust people? How enslaving or enabling are people's responsibilities and boundaries? When people miss performance targets are they coached or replaced? The answers to these questions are found in the degree of decentralization and autonomy in an organization. What do the people in your organization think about the control and autonomy they have?

To what extent is your system and structure aligned with your team or organization's Focus and Context (vision, values, and purpose)? Your management team needs to agree on the philosophy and approach, underpinning any changes to your structure and systems. Get your team to discuss and agree on the key values and characteristics shaping your organization's structure. How far do you want to go with each one? What are the implications for changes and improvements in your team and the organization? How can you ensure that the structure and system conclusions you arrive at are reflected in your improvement plan? This critical team discussion needs to take place before you reengineer or restructure your organization.

Form follows function. Let the structure evolve from your strategy, process, and systems. A strong Context and Focus (vision, values, and purpose) will provide the glue that keeps everyone together. And keeping everyone focused on goals and priorities will allow more fluidity in organization design.

One of the biggest barriers to decentralization is the skill level of those being given more autonomy. The more you push authority and operating responsibilities to operating teams, the more training and coaching support they'll need.

Ensure your head office is a lean and keen field service center. Turn all staff and support functions to face outward to the customers and serve the servers/producers. Train and hold staff people accountable for being coaches rather than controllers. They exist to provide expertise and support. Don't let their constant requests for information and internal demands get in the way of people doing the work that customers are paying for.

Structure, systems, and processes are intertwined. You can make a fair degree of progress by changing processes only. But eventually (and often quickly), process improvement teams will slam into unaligned systems and structures. And most system and structure changes require process changes. Start with process mapping and improvement. System and structural changes will follow.

Be careful about splitting sales or customer service groups along division or product lines. It's often too confusing and frustrating for Clients to have to organize your service processes for you. If you're providing complex or multiple products and services, turn your key sales or customer contact people into generalists or project managers (that means lots of training and support). Their role is to manage the customer interface and coordinate all the experts, specialists, and other team members that will be brought in when needed.

Make sure everyone in your organization understands that your structure is fluid and must continually change in a fast changing world. There is no such thing as "once we get past this change (such as a reorganization), things will return to normal." Constant change and improvement is today's normal.

There is no such thing as over-communication in organization improvement efforts. But try to over-communicate why changes are being made and where they fit into your larger Context and Focus and strategic imperatives.

You have to keep pulling out the weeds of bureaucracy (staff groups, controls and constraints, policies and procedures that get in the way, and the like). It's a never-ending job.

Related Articles
  BELIEF SYSTEMS DETERMINE HOW YOU UNDERSTAND LIFE
  Comfort Zones
  The Surprising Harm Of Being Around Negative People
  Solidifying Your Company
  Structure For Success
  What is Nutrigenomics?
  Small Business Coach - Why Entrepreneurs Need Routine, Structure and Focus!
  An exit strategy? I just got started!
  Improvement Planning Infrastructure and Process
  Our Changing Brain: Neuroplasticity and the Power of the Mind
  What We Get is What We See
  Organization Structure Limits or Liberates High Performance
  Is There a Solopreneur Business Model?
  Why Transformation Efforts Fail
  Mastering Change Through Continuous Growth, Learning, and Improvement
  Three Years to Seven Figures
  Finding the right franchise structure
  The Gerber Method
  17 Ideas To Help Women In Business Make More Money
  Do Systems Run Your Business?

Article Tags: leadership
Referred by: http://www.searchengineworkshops.com



Related Forum Posts
CMS - Speaking of Content Management Systems, which one are you going with? I've stubbornly held off going to a CMS, but each time I change something on my pages, such as the Navbar, I have to go back through everyone and cut and paste and it does get time consuming. BUt I like the freedom to alter a single pages layout if I need to to accomodate a certain type of article...
Where I want WSI to be in Dec 31 2007 - Here are my goals for end of 2007 Employees - SEO specialist - admin assistant - sales rep - designer/data entry - copy writer (may be outsourced) Target market (client base) manufacturers 10-50 million in revenue looking for integrated marketing solution ranging from 10k - 30k Systems - crm fully utilized - project management smooth process - sales and marketing to continuously generate leads SALES (My big Goal to focus on ) Last years sales revenue was $220K This year we want to hit $500K - approx 40k per month
5 Entrepreneur's success stories - My local paper's business section profiled 5 successful entrepreneurs in the Jan 6, 2008 issue of the paper. Thought I'd share just a bit of it here. Bill and Heidi Dittmar: Executive Lifestyle Jeff Wassmer: Spectrum Deloise Hawkins, Star Whitaker and Lenzy Hill: Touch of Elegance Stephen Brosius: Advanced Door Systems Pam Watson: Goodrich and Watson Insurers Bill and Heidi Dittmar: Executive Lifestyle founders of a magazine called Executive Lifestyle. Started in 1991. Revenue has grown more than 200% since 2004. 4 full time, 3 part time employees "We started off with $1,000 and a stupid idea." It began as This Month, a guide for tourists, and morphed into Executive Lifestyle. Jeff Wassmer: Spectrum Company specializes in computer network security and intelligence surveillance and reconnaissance. Wassmer was an 11-year Air Force guy, so he had "ins" in order to form this business. Deloise Hawkins, Star Whitaker and Lenzy Hill: Touch of Elegance Founded business in 1994. 12 employees. Their company designs and plans an average of 25 events each month in Hampton Roads and other parts of Virginia. Stephen Brosius: Advanced Door Systems Started company in 1995. 5 full-time employees, plus subcontractors. After having worked as a subcontractor for others in the construction business for 20 years, he decided to start his own business. Pam Watson: Goodrich and Watson Insurers At age 49, she was approached by an insurance colleague to buy out their employer's insurance division. They did so, and became employers themselves., witj 4 full-time people.
Re: Ideas For Business - Hello Lucy, you may consider this list for Ideas for Business: (Top 23 list) Rank Company 1 Google 2 Genentech 3 Wegmans Food Markets 4 Container Store 5 Whole Foods Market 6 Network Appliance 7 S.C. Johnson & Son 8 Boston Consulting Grp. 9 Methodist Hospital Sys. 10 W.L. Gore & Associates 11 Cisco Systems 12 David Weekley Homes 13 Nugget Market 14 Qualcomm 15 American Century Invest. 16 Starbucks Coffee 17 Quicken Loans 18 Station Casinos 19 Alston & Bird 20 QuikTrip 21 Griffin Hospital 22 Valero Energy 23 Vision Service Plan
Hi Everybody, I'm a fresher here - [color=blue:dtnm7nrh] Hi Everybody, I just registered myself here last night and I'd say that I'm really impressed with the number of active members and number of posts. I'm sure it's gonna be an wonderful experience for me. My name is Palak Biswas. I'm functioning with RapidSoft Systems as the Business Development Manager and responsible for the complete offshore operations in India. We have sales offices in NJ and CA as well. Our core competency is into mobile applications, social-networking area and the WEB 2.0 space. We are coming up with our own 'Social-networking software' package which will be completely customizable as per requirements and one can cherry pick the features they'd love to have in his/her site. anyone interested to know more, can drop me a line - palak@rapidsoftsystems.com . I'd be looking for all your suggestions... [/color:dtnm7nrh]


Share this article with your friends. Fund someone's dream.

Leave a comment below or share on the left and you'll help support entrepreneurs in Africa through our partnership with Kiva. Over $50,000 raised and counting - Please keep sharing! Learn more.

Newsletter

Get advice & tips from famous business
owners, new articles by entrepreneur
experts, my latest website updates, &
special sneak peaks at what's to come!

Name:
Email:

Popular Articles

Presenting Yourself With Impact at Work

Secrets of Successful Business Partnering

Business Coach Explains To You How To Add Value

Suggestions

Email us your ideas on how to make our
website more valuable! Thank you Sharon
from Toronto Salsa Lessons / Classes for
your suggestions to make the newsletter
look like the website and profile younger
entrepreneurs like Jennifer Lopez.